THE EYES OF A LEADER

To the right is my favorite Michael Jordan photograph. It captures much more than two super-stars matched up against each other. It captures the heart of a passionate leader through the eyes.

Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, Germany's greatest general in WWII said he knew if a battle would be won or lost as he looked into his commander's eyes. He said, "I know the outcome because their eyes mirrored mine." He knew if his commanders could look him in the eyes with his same fearlessness and certainty of victory, the battle was theirs.

It begins with the eyes. The eyes exhibit attitude. This attitude of confidence creates actions of the body that communicate assurance. Look at the posture of a leader. Their posture creates presence. And this presence is called poise. Poise is created when the leader is prepared through real experience, knowledge of their craft, and tens of thousands of hours of training skills.

In the book, "How to be a Fierce Competitor," author Jeffrey Fox writes:

"They (Leaders) look into the mirror until they see victory peering back. They lead the organization with confidence, even when uncertain. They are sometimes fearful but always fearless. They may be overwhelmed, but never daunted, always willing."

At BodyTecz we like to say you can tell the difference in our athletes by the look in their eye when they compete. Our athletes are prepared and battle tested. Our confidence in what we do is directly passed into them. Show up and get better or don't show up at all. To us there is no other way. Our desire is create fearless and tenacious athletes. They are taught to respect all but fear none. We teach them to be tenacious competitors. And because of this, our athletes strike fear into their opposition.

If you want to know what your eyes are telling your team or organization do the following:

1) Look at the eyes of those following you, and
2) look at the outcomes your leadership has created.

Both of these will indicate where your team is at and where you team is going.

This week lead with your eyes. When a tough decision is needed, let your eyes show your confidence. Even if you are scared to death, be fearless. You are the leader and that is your job.

MAKING HUSTLE FAMOUS

"I'm the basketball version of a gravedigger."

Dennis Rodman is my all-time favorite NBA player (yes, even over Michael Jordan).

Rodman inspired me. I began falling in love with his game during his run with the Bulls.

He played the game with a menacing beauty. He was hated by his opponents, but loved by his team. He was a winner, a champion, and became the most famous role player to ever play the game.

Rodman was a genius.

He made rebounding, diving into whatever for loose balls, tenacious defense, and irritating the other team with his tactics an art.

I guess I took to him because that was the type of player I was. Not everyone understands how you can get such fulfillment from having no stats in the line. Like Rodman, all I cared about was the most important stat, how many times my team scored more points than the other team.

But Rodman's inspired me the most because was he had the courage to be himself. Because of this, he made "HUSTLE FAMOUS."

Many fans did not see Rodman's obsession and dedication to his job. He was in better shape than most players. He worked hard in the off-season and during the season to build and maintain his strength and endurance. He studied game film on individual players watching how their ball came off the rim so he be in a better position to rebound.

I often say, "Defense and Rebounding is Attitude." Rodman perfected the skill of rebounding and had more attitude about it than any other player to ever play the game. He worked on his touch around the rim. He perfected tipping balls in from crazy angles, in-between, and over taller oppenents. He was quoted saying, "I want to do for rebounds what Michael Jordan did for dunks."

His game was revolutionary. An eccentric personality, the first guy to cover himself in tattoo's. The NBA front office loved and hated him all at the same time. He was different. His differences created critics. But his differences also made him one of the greatest players of all time.

People fear different. And different is often punished.

But in his difference was his greatness. Imagine if we all had the courage to accept who we are, deliver our unique greatness, accept others criticism, and do what our heart tells us we were created to do.

That is the moral of this Monday Morning Motivation. It's about questioning something you are probably struggling with right now. It's about how you will make your HUSTLE FAMOUS.

Most of us are poor versions of someone else.

Since birth, we have been influenced to conform. To accept the status quo, to be controlled by systems, society, religion, and government.

It is not you.

We are quick to discount who we are.

We make excuses for not pursuing our strengths, passions, and interests.

"I would love to do that but that is not going to support a family, give me a fulfilling career...blah blah blah."

"I'll only be accepted if I have a masters degree....blah blah blah."

"I couldn't make a career out of that...blah blah blah."

Instead we become well rounded.

Well rounded means you are extremely good at being mediocre.

Rodman made hustle famous not because he was NOT well-rounded. He made hustle famous because he made the not so popular stats in basketball, rebounding, hustle, and toughness an art.

If you are a student, get A's because you like to compete. Get A's because you understand good grades "may" get your foot in the door.

But while working on your GPA, find a subject to fall in love with. Pursue it early. The earlier you decide to be an individual the greater chance you have of making your hustle famous.

What do most of us do?

We make mental trade-offs.

We accept what we "think" we should do. This is our greatest mistake.

Go to school, get good grades, play sports, join a bunch of clubs, get accepted to college, get good grades, get involved in sports, groups, clubs, get a job, get married, have kids, retire, die.

Who made this up?

And why do we all seem to think this is the "path of life." All of these things are wonderful and beautiful parts of our existence, but the system seems to have snipers along the way who take us out. Our heart that is.

How much of our own greatness do we sacrifice in the process?

We end up attempting what is impossible.

Put a :) on. Fit in. Compare. Be like them. Do what you are "supposed" to do.

But then we realize something. We forget who we are. In panic, we do anything and everything to re-discover ourselves. We search frantically for inspiration. Something that can ignite a spark that may free our buried passions.

Where we look is sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Either way, we feel we have no choice but to search.

Funny thing is, we can exist and even perform well going through the motions.

Society has set up systems to make sure that we are safe, secure, and "successful" as a poser. It is called the American Dream.

We live, we exist, but we know something isn't right. But our mind feeds our heart the lie, "Don't worry Heart, it's the right thing to do."

And as each minute, hour, and day passes...it builds, it inevitably takes it's toll.

It becomes more difficult to wake up. Motivation declines or sometimes completely walks out on you.

Confidence follows. You can't line up your heart with your actions. You struggle with getting anything done. The end of the day feels like the beginning...insignificant.

You disinterest in life and work begins to affect how you make people feel. You no longer attract people to you. At least not the ones who make your life productive and significant.

Then people begin to lose interest in you...your reputation loses its attractiveness.

The root word of interesting is "interest." It is impossible to be interesting and enthusiastic unless you know and pursue what interests you.

Interested people have interesting energy.

Interested people have interesting confidence.

Interested people create interesting results

Interested people create interesting differences

Interested people create interesting lives

And why do we love interesting people?

Interesting people inspire us. They give us a glimpse that what we know is true is possible in us to. They give us courage. Courage to be ourselves.

Question...?

When will you, like the cross-dressing, make-up wearing, tattooed, nose-ring having, rebounding machine, the Worm, Dennis Rodman, make your HUSTLE FAMOUS?


DENNIS RODMAN HIGHLIGHTS

UNLEASHING THE DRAGON

I made an interesting observation. Some of the greatest martial artists who have performed their craft at the highest levels are counter-culture to the "give it all you got," culture of western society.

These individuals are tenacious in their arena, yet they seem to have more compassion. They are far surpassed in their skill and ability, yet they walk in humility and honor. They could destroy you in seconds, but they are always calm, cool, collected, and poised.

Young athletes, young men especially, strive to continuously be the Dragon: fierce, competitive, aggressive and strong. Our society has taught them that this is the way to achieve success.

But on the contrary, I have observed that the consistently dominate athletes, businessmen, martial artists, musicians, etc all maintain a certain inner strength derived through an inner peace that differs from others.

They are sometimes said to be the "nicest guy you'll ever meet," off the field. But on the field, they change. They morph. The fire out of their mouth is so much more powerful and controlled, they almost effortlessly torch their field of play.

I'd like to share with you what one Dragonhas taught me through his books. He teaches that the garbage you allow into your mind is what distracts you from letting your body and mind connect as an athlete. His name is Bruce Lee, and he calls it Wu Wei.

Wu means "non" and wei means "action, doing, striving." In the The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, their is a part where Cruise is getting messed up in a training exercise by two or three Samurai. During the fight, he looks haphazard, fighting out of raw emotion, swinging his weapon with no intent, just hoping to connect. Though Cruise is a trained military soldier and warrior, his aggression and training does not give him what he needs to take on his opponents successfully. One of the Samurai yells out to Cruise, "too much mind."

Wu Wei does not invoke taking no action. It is the art of letting your mind go and trusting it to do the work you've taught it to do. As an athlete, you train your skills daily. The more hours of deliberate practice you put in, the more refined you skills become.

But why, sometimes, can we not get past a certain stage. Why can't we transfer this practice to a field of play and dominate our opponents. Because we never truly trust ourselves. We get in our own way. Instead of acting in harmony with what is in front of us, we try to force the issue; control.

Attaining Wu Wei means to attain what Lee calls "spontaneous action," or "spirit action." This means that you have allowed the mind to become the governing force and have let your senses go.

To do this you must master the principle of Wuhsinor "no-mindedness." Allan Watts describes no mindedness as, "a state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club."

To all my young athletes and parents. This second mind or "club" that beats all your hard work into mediocrity is the ego. The ego is what makes us worry about what people think of our performance. It is what causes fear, anxiety, jealousy, envy, pride, vanity, covetous, and even hatred. This "club" keeps our performance on the practice field stellar, but once the lights are on, this "club" does everything that it can to tell us "we're not good enough," or "people are judging me," and so forth.

Take a lesson from one of the greatest masters of his craft. Learn the Unleash The Dragon, by trusting all the work you have put into your skill. When performing, only focus on the skill, focus on improving your ability to use what you have practiced. And do not worry about the outcome. Only by practicing and attaining, Wu Wei will you ever become a true master.

Check out this clip of Bruce Lee teaching a young student Wu Wei. He didn't mess around:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roY9SaqM0mo

MY LIBERATION TOUR STORY

My last 100 days of existence has been anything but fun. But sticking with one of my favorite motto's, "if it doesn't suck, don't do it," I endured the Liberation Tour and completed it right on the deadline.

This is a quick story of my Liberation Tour experience and a few things I took from it.

Pictured to the left is me, bent over a sledge hammer, in a puddle over my own sweat. I just swung that thing for twenty minutes straight. That was after I had the bright idea of running the 4 mile run challenge in my garage at 4pm. Bad idea. Not only because it was the longest running challenge (4 miles) but also because it was 324 degrees inside my garage.

Train in the worst conditions possible...that's what I always say right? Well the only thing that was missing that day was Lucifer himself poking me with his flaming devil Triton.

But I thought this picture would give you a good idea of the way I felt after enduring through 30 of the worst physical challenges someone could volunteer to do...dripping sweat, utterly exhausted, relieved that I was finally done, and ultimately quite accomplished.

If you are not familiar with the Liberation Tour it is simply a battery of physical and mental challenges I created that provide you with "30 ways to make you quit." The goal is to check off each of these challenges in 100 days or less.

A better explanation is given below. I use this in the blog site.

"You are about to embark on a truly unique experience of '30 ways to make you quit.'

Your mission...conquer all thirty ways to quit in 100 days or less.

'30 ways to quit,' will challenge your mental and physical capacities.

To complete this tour is a great feat.

To complete this tour is to prove your ability to withstand constant adversity for 100 days. It will force you to keep going when you want to give up. It will force yourself to push yourself farther than you want to go.

In the end, you will be Liberated. Liberated by knowing that the person you once were no longer exists, You, my friend, will see a whole new meaning to your potential."

I created this tour understanding most of you fail to realize how much you have already inside of you. That everything you want to accomplish, you already posses. It's just waiting to be liberated.

But you settle. You choose to take the path of least resistance. You let fear, insecurity, doubt, selfishness, and flat out laziness steal the greatness from inside of you. You let others direct your paths and set barriers on you.

Every now and then you need to do something to see what you're made of. This tour gives you that. It challenges you by providing a set time of consistent mental and physical adversity. It's done in a controlled manner. All challenges are based on you as an individual.

Finding what you're made of can't happen if someone else is forcing you to do it. You'll cop out. Finding what you're made of is a voluntary activity.

Voluntary...You don't have a schedule or time to show up to do these exercises. You don't have anything motivating you but your own will and competitiveness against yourself. You have no one coaching you. Each one of these is done on your own merit. Your own will.

The toughest thing about this challenge was not listening to myself. Those words that spoke to my not so great personality characteristics of laziness, doubt, and fear. And many times telling myself, "I don't really need to finish this. It doesn't matter."

But it did...my dad taught me to never quit. When it starts to hurt that's when it gets fun...that's where you separate yourself from everyone else. That's where you put a smile on your face and shift into that other gear.

My biggest fear: Running...I despise it for some reason. I believe when I was putting together the challenges for this tour put the 1, 2, 3, and 4 mile run challenge in for myself. If it was going to liberate me, I had to get over the fear I had of running for more than 94 feet at a time.

A ex-navy seal once said, "running is the best exercise because it build's character." It does. It's easy to stop. Your body has given you a great muscular system that brakes quite easily. The key is forgetting you have breaks and just keep going. That saying always made sense to me, but now, after doing it, I really understand that statement.

When I began the tour, I was ready to conquer these runs, and the first thing I did was the 1 mile run. It had been two years since I ran one mile, without stopping. I ran it in 6:45. I later wrote on a facebook post, "When I got off the treadmill it felt like a Gnome was repeatedly hitting the back of my hamstrings with a 2 x 4." It was tough, but not as tough as I thought.

I had the pleasure and was motivated by watching two Liberated Warriors crush this tour in 40 and 41 days.

Jimmy Powers, a young fire fighter, absolutely ran through the Liberation Tour in 41 days. He'd show up on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and kick the crap out of these challenges (you can read more of Jimmy's story on the Liberation Tour blog). Jimmy would talk a lot of noise to me, "are you gonna finish?" "Come on old man?" "Step your game up." Jimmy didn't know but he was a large part of my motivation.

Then we had a second person finish. Picture a mother of four, 40 years of age, knocking out 150 squat jumps and 20 minutes of sledge hammer swings in one single day to make sure that she completed the tour in 40 days...completing it a day faster than Jimmy the fit fire fighter man. It was amazing. She will probably hold that record until she decides to break it herself.

So far three people have finished. That leaves quite a few in what I call the "Liberation Tour Graveyard." Some got close, some tried one challenge and then thought, "what the heck am I doing," and, some never even started.

What I realized is that most of us fall short in accomplishing what we want in life when things start to get hard. When things start to get uncomfortable. That's when it's easy to start making excuses and justify another route.

It's also easy to quit once the newness and excitement wears off. We are all fired up the first couple of weeks, but then when things start to get repetitive, boring, or especially more difficult, we get that voice in our head that starts to talk us out of completing what we started.

Sunday, the day after I completed my tour, I got more things done around my house than I'd done in months. I said to myself, "I just finished the Liberation Tour, why they heck can I not get these little things done around my house. I just ran 8 miles in one week, I can do anything." My wife was probably wondering if someone broke into the house, knocked me unconscious, and got all these things done.

TO WRAP THIS UP, HERE ARE 5 QUICK LESSONS I LEARNED FROM THE LIBERATION TOUR.

1. YOU CAN'T REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE INSIDE YOU UNTIL YOU FACE WHAT SCARES YOU TO DEATH: Over the last 100 days, I've heard a lot of people talk about how they could complete the Liberation Tour in 1 week, 2 weeks, 30 days, etc. I giggled. It's easy to talk trash to an enemy when they're behind a brick wall you won't climb over.

2. EXCUSES RULE OUR LIVES AND STEAL OUR GREATNESS: Excuses are easy. Get rid of things in your life that are easy. An excuse is nothing more then validation of weakness.

3. IF YOU WRITE OUT SPECIFICALLY WHAT YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH, WORK ON IT A LITTLE BIT AT A TIME, IT'S AMAZING WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE: Only set goals you can measure numerically. Set thirty today for the next year. Then go liberate yourself.

4. WE GET OUT OF LIFE ONLY WHAT WE COMMIT TO FINISH: You can never give what you don't have. And you will never have what you do not finish.

5. IT'S STILL NOT FOR EVERYONE: No matter what, some will, some won't, and some just choose to defer. I think I would rather be the one that does. What about you?

If you would like more information on the Liberation Tour, you can reply to this email or go to the Liberation Tour blog.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK

CONFLICT THERAPY

Author Robert Green in his book, The 33 Strategies of War writes, "Child psychologist Jean Piaget saw conflict as a critical part of mental development. Through battles with peers and then parents, children learn to adapt to the world and develop strategies for dealing with problems."

The author continues on reiterating the importance of not backing away from battles throughout adolescence and adulthood:
"it is through your battles that you learn what works, what doesn't, and how to protect yourself."

The Quick Conclusion: No matter your age, learn to embrace your battles. The younger the better.

Unfortunately our day and age has taught us to do everything possible to protect us from going into battle:

We want to be secured a position on the team, instead of giving them no choice to put you in the starting lineup.

We travel around the country attempting to expose talent to scouts, instead of spending that time becoming a master at our skills.

We settle for jobs we hate instead of actually doing what we want to do.

We choose to be mediocre because we are afraid of being exposed for who we really are.

We don't stand up for something we really believe in because we are afraid of not being liked.

We keep ourselves busy with meaningless tasks instead of actually focusing on the one or two things that could really change our lives.

We let others decide what's best for us, and thus, have no passion, power, or meaning in what we do.

We spend hours on the Internet, checking our email, seeing what our "friends" are doing on facebook, instead of using that time to work on something that could change our's and others lives.

And in the end...we make make far more excuses than we make progress.

John Maxwell recently gave a talk called, Why John Wooden's Teams Won. Maxwell observed...

"He (Coach Wooden) achieved personal victories before he lead his team to victory. He won the battle of self. He has disciplined his own life, and has won his main victory. This allowed him to also show other people how to be victorious."

To win the battle over yourself should be number one on the agenda. To do this, show up to your sessions of CONFLICT THERAPY.

In these sessions you can see what we are made of. In these sessions is you'll gain perspective you need to let your gifts, talents, and passions come to life.

It is never a good idea to go into battle with someone who has never been tested. Or as I like to paraphrase, "never trust an un-broken man." Only the tested and broken man can truly lead others into victory over themselves. Anyone else is a poser...a fake.

Who would want to go to battle with you?

This Week...Decide to do something significant with your life. Try for one entire day not to make one excuse. I think you'll be surprised on how many you actually drum up.

This Week...Go get some CONFLICT THERAPY. Then GO passionately share your stories of struggle and triumph with others. You're life and the lives of those you touch will begin to change.

As Thomas Jefferson was quoted, "When the heart is right, the feet are swift."

Below is a clip of one of my all-time favorite movies. It is all about conflict therapy. It is about discovering who you are through a seemingly impossible fight. It's about knowing what your fighting for. It's about what happens inside you when you're backed into a corner. It's about knowing what you stand for. And most of all, it's about continually winning the victory over yourself.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK MY FRIENDS!!

CINDERELLA MAN

HOW NOT TO BECOME THE "USED TOO GUY"

This MMM came to me when an athlete of mine asked how much I bench. My immediate response was... "Well, I used to...."

Instead of telling this kid the standard, "how much you bench doesn't matter," I went with a possibly inflated number that I did in the 90's:))

What's funny is I said this with no hesitation. Not a thought entered my mind about telling him how much I currently may bench press. I would love to blame it on the fact that I haven't done a bench press max in a few years, but when it comes down to it, it's because I became the "used too" guy.

Here are a couple of facts about the mythical "used too" guy:

1. As the years pass, your "used too" numbers continue to improve. For example: If you actually bench pressed 250 lbs in high school. Buy the time you are 30, it marginally increases to 275-300lbs. And by the time you are 40, you may be looking in the 325-350 area. It's amazing how your "used too" guy gets stronger as you struggle to put up 135.

2. The "used too" guy always comes through: He always comes through when you cannot meet a challenge, you get your butt kicked by a kid, or you are watching any sport. The "used too" guy always finds a way to whip up a "good ole days" story to let people know that you didn't used to suck this bad.

3. If not for the "used too" guy most of us would be in trouble. You see, the reason we call the "used Too" guy off the bench every now and then is for validation. Validation that we actually were athlete's, or strong, or even smart. GPA is another on of those numbers that probably magically increases with age.

When you call the "Used too" guy up from the bench....no one cares. You generally get a blank stare just like Napoleon and Kip as they watch Uncle Rico's self-recorded VHS tapes of him throwing a football.

No one who lives in the present really cares about or likes the "used too" guy. Their are two ways you know this. The person your are introducing the "used too" guy too will either A) roll their eyes, or B) Just change the conversation.

What we need to understand is keeping this guy around doesn't help anyone, especially you. I am particularly talking to coach's and leaders in this one.

Someone once told me that in order to become a coach (or leader), you first have to let go of the fact that you are not longer a player. Why? Because if you are a player, you compete. If you are competing against your team, than it is impossible to be an effective coach.

A great leader thinks only about one thing...everyone else.

One of the most virtuous qualities of a leader is humility. Humility is impossible if you think about validating your worth more than you think about improving your team.

Another problem is the "used too" guy can stop your from progressing. At some point you probably stopped working out as hard. At some point you stopped practicing your sport for 2 hours a day. The natural law says that if you stop doing something that used to consume your life, over time, that skill will eventually become diminished.

So this week, as a coach or leader, take this advice on getting rid of the "used too" guy for not just your good, but also everyone else too:

1. Put your team first: Quit telling them how great you used to be and start showing them how great they still can be. As their leader you must continue to improve with the intention of giving what you learn.

2. Use past stories only to teach lessons: Do not waste your time telling stories to validate your worthiness or let them know how magnificent you used to be. Stories of when you failed, overcame, or had to fight through particular situations are much more effective as a leader. Teach your team through stories that help them take wisdom you've gained from the past.

4. Don't compete: Not with your team. Most leaders have a competitive streak that can change relationships. You never want to make competition personal with people you lead. You can play hard, you can go hard, but never take it to a level where it becomes personal.

I love to play one on one with my kids. And I love to beat them. Unfortunately, as the years have gone by they have improved and grown. I have not. I hate losing, I don't care if they are in the NBA, I still hate losing. But when I changed my mindset to using that time to help develop them and our relationship instead of trying to get a W for my own ego, everything changed. Now I can compete hard, lose, and the only thing I am worried about is if I gave them a chance to get better.

5. Worry about being the best at who you are right now: You can't be the best at who you are right now if you are still holding on to what you once were. Fight even thinking about what you did yesterday. It's over. The best continually strive to get better daily.

Life's greatest gift is the ability to change with every moment. Each moment gives you a new opportunity to be something better than you were. This is created by nothing by the decisions you make to change, to learn, to do what is right. To me this is more than just a gift, this is a responsibility.

Watch Uncle Rico in this video as he shows you what the "Used Too" guy is all about! It is outstanding. Have a great week!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gducgTcJMMU

A DAY I'LL NEVER FORGET

There are certain days you will have in you life life that are just a little more special than others. One of mine happened to come on March 27th, 2007 at the 2007 McDonald's All-American Game.

I am quite fortunate to have great friends like John and Sue Calathes. They entrusted me to work with their two boys, Pat and Nick, who turned out to be some pretty talented players.

My visit to Louisville that year was to watch the younger of the two, Nick. Nick was a two time Florida Player of the Year and was on his was in the fall to play for Coach Donavan and the Florida Gators. My wife and I were able to share this tremendous experience with Nick and his family.

We had the opportunity to be apart of what I consider to be the greatest talent pool of McDonald's All-American's ever to come out in a single year.

Here are some of the players who played in that game. If you know basketball, while you read these names, you will understand why this game was so unique and special: Nick Calathes, Johnny Flinn, Austin Freeman, Donte Green, J.J. Hickson, Kosta Koufas, O.J. Mayo, Patrick Patterson, Nolan Smith, Chris Wright, Jerryd Bayless, Michael Beasley, Eric Gorden, Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Jai Lucas, Derrick Rose, Kyle Singler.

Apart from the game we attended a formal event on March 27th, 2007. The event featured two legendary basketball icons. Speaking first, Bill Walton. Second, only reading a poem from memory, John Wooden.

I am writing this on Sunday June 6th, 2010. Today I am thirty-three years old and it is a bitter sweet day for me. My birthday, but mourning my hero, John Wooden. I know he is with God. I know that he is now with his wife, who he loved and adored so much, Nelly and I am so happy for him. But, man will I, and this world, ever miss a man like Coach.

Yesterday, Coach Wooden passed away at ninety-nine years old. Coach may be one of the only men in the existence of humanity whom lived his live to the fullest. A man of genuine character and integrity to the highest degree. A person we can all model our life after. Not because of his success as a coach, but because of who he was as a person.

Back in Louisville.....

As we took our seats at the banquet, in the middle of our table sat a silent auction item, an autographed John Wooden basketball. I told my wife I would spend every penny we had in our bank account to get that ball.

But once again, my hosts who I shared their table with, decided they would let me win the action and keep the ball. What friends. And for me, what a gift. In the end, I walked out with my favorite piece of autographed memorabilia that I will ever have.

But that's not the greatest part about this story...

Nick came back to our table and asked me if I wanted to meet Coach Wooden.

Uhhhhhh....yes.

Nick, who had just had about a 10 minute conversation with Coach, escorted me through a crowd of people and lead me to being in front of living legend, my hero, a person who I want to be, the man who has lived his life as example of what a "coach" should be. Nick introduced me as his coach, and Coach Wooden shook my hand, covering our hand shake with his left hand, and said, "You've done a great job."

Holy Crap!!...he may not have known that I wasn't Nick's basketball coach (even though I've done my fair share of schooling Nick on the court:)). But to hear John Wooden affirm to me that I've done a great job!! I will hold onto that for the rest of my life!

This MMM is about opportunity. It is about how to set yourself up to realize these special opportunities that you may have only dreamed about.

If you want to create for yourself unbelievable opportunities, start putting these things into action this week.

1) Surround yourself with greatness: Surround yourself with great people, great organizations, great teams, great books, great quotes, anything that will continue to feed your mind with greatness. If you do this, you will continue to find yourself with great opportunities.

2) Understanding what a great opportunity is: If you don't know what a great opportunity looks like, it will pass you up. I am sure there were hundred's of people that day who did not make the effort to meet Coach Wooden that day in Louisville. I am sure most people knew who he was. But I do not know if most of them had read every single book that Wooden has ever wrote or been apart of. I have. I felt like I knew Coach Wooden from all of the books I have read about him. I knew this was a one and a million opportunity.

3) Loving what you do: Bottom line, without passion for what I do, for my love of the game of basketball, for my love of developing and coaching young men and women, I would have never been invited by Nick and his family to be at this event.

4) Get to Work: Let your passion lead to work. My philosophy on work has always been to find out who is the best at what I do, find out what they are committed to everyday, and try to go at it ten times harder than they do. The harder you work, the more opportunities you get.

5) Have a passion for giving others great opportunities: I think this is something that is not said as much in "motivational writing." The greatest rewards I get in life are the rewards of knowing I have personally been a part of giving someone a great opportunity.

What fuels my passion and work ethic in what I do is all about that. It's not about the money, it's not about the status, it's about nothing but giving people opportunity. I love it. That is what I do.

I realized a long time ago that the level of opportunities that I could give to others was based on the level of greatness I achieved for myself. As I continue to work hard, I see that I continue to raise the level opportunities I give to others.

Wooden said, "Ability is a poor man's wealth." He helped me realize it is of much greater value to go to work on who I am than what I do. He helped me to realize that to give opportunities to others, this was the most important part of my growth.

He summed this up when he said, "What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player." Or a basketball coach, or a strength coach, or a lawyer, or a sales person, or a student, or any other label we tend to put on ourselves.

Here's a question that you can think about this week:

"How many people would say that you've given them an opportunity for greatness that they would have never had without you?"

As you go forward, realize the more people you can get to say this, the greater your life will be.

PLEASE WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO ON COACH WOODEN CALLED, "WOODEN'S LOVE LETTER." IT'S UNBELIEVABLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFbZckxrTTQ